While the partnership between Qualcomm and Apple should last a few more years, the Californian firm specializing in the production of chips and other modems should therefore continue to supply 5G modems to Apple. This partnership could lead in 2023 to the arrival of a Qualcomm Snapdragon X70 5G modem in what should be “the iPhone 15”.
The chip was presented this week during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona by Qualcomm. But the great novelty of the latter is that it hosts a part of artificial intelligence, a great first in the history of the brand’s products.
A very first chip with AI
Like its predecessor, the Snapdragon X70 modem is capable of downloading up to 10Gbps, but the big new thing is that it adds things like Qualcomm’s 5G suite that runs on artificial intelligence. These changes should allow the chip to improve its responsiveness in the future.
AI should thus make it possible to improve connectivity, but also to make more intelligent use of the energy available to the phone. According to early announcements from Qualcomm, the modem’s AI-driven adaptive antenna should be able to adjust and optimize the transmit and receive paths to reduce the chip’s power consumption. We must here see the term AI, used by Qualcomm, as a new method of Machine Learning and not a “pure” artificial intelligence that would make decisions on its own.
No X70 before iPhone 15 and 2023?
Qualcomm has announced that its chip will be released for the first time in the second half of 2022, which gives a shooting window for the iPhone 14, but Apple will surely prefer to focus on parts that have already proven themselves on the market.
We will therefore have to wait for the iPhone 15 and the start of the 2023 school year to be entitled to this chip within an iPhone. It could also be the last trace of the partnership between Apple and Qualcomm, the latter being announced to end in 2023. We already know that the Apple brand is working on the design of its own 5G modem, as it did for Apple Silcion chips in its computers, ending a years-long partnership with Intel.
